The disclosed embodiments of the present invention relate to reducing the overall power consumption of an electronic device, and more particularly, to an electronic device having functional blocks that are individually controlled to selectively enter a power-saving mode and related power control method thereof.
Power consumption is crucial to the performance of certain applications, especially portable devices. In general, an electronic device is capable of switching between a normal mode and a power-saving mode (e.g., a sleep mode or a power-down mode) in order to reduce the overall power consumption. Taking a cellular phone with a wireless communication receiver included therein for example, the battery life is a major issue for the consumer. When the wireless communication receiver is allowed to leave the normal mode and enter the power-saving mode, a conventional design is to cut off power sources/clock sources of circuit components included in the wireless communication receiver for maximum power consumption reduction. However, when deciding whether to switch the wireless communication receiver into the power-saving mode, the conventional design has to consider the wireless communication receiver as a whole. That is, in accordance with the conventional design, circuit components included in the wireless communication receiver are all controlled to enter the power-saving mode or stay in the normal mode, which lacks flexibility in reducing the power consumption.
Thus, there is a need for an innovative power control scheme which is capable of controlling operational modes of a plurality of functional blocks individually for achieving improved power saving performance.